ClonnyServer 2.0

So, yesterday I said I was attempting to get Mac OSX (iDeneb OSX86) working on VMWare Server 2. Well, I didn’t have any luck. None of my attempts loaded any further than the grey screen of doom and gloom. Time to do a bit more research, although by the looks of things, VMWare Server 2 just doesn’t cut it for running a Hacked Macintosh OS!

So, it’s nearly 5AM. You’ve pulled an all-nighter, finished Crysis (what a shit ending too…), watched a heap of military videos on youtube and have caught up on all your series. What do you do? Well my friends the answer is simple: Attempt to install a hacked foreign platform operating system into an even more obscure platform!

I am using iDeneb 1.5.1 which I acquired from <insert location here>. I’m not going to tell you where to get it but if you have half a brain you should be able to figure it out. Heres a little bit about the specs of the host machine;

AMD X2 6000+

4GB DDR2 @ 400Mhz

ASUS M3A78 EMH-HDMI

130GB 10000RPM Velociraptor

Installing iDeneb (or any X86 MacOS clone) is pretty damn annoying on hardware that isn’t Intel. Moreso when you have it virtualised. The default kernel that iDeneb uses if you do not specify one will only work on Intel architecture (I think… I have no idea as I use AMD exclusively). There is a kernel named “voodoo” which from what I can gather is the best option for AMD systems. So, I create a VM, 2 Cores, 2GB ram, drives are SATA on the same virtual controller. Yadda yadda yadda. Time to boot!

Or not. When booting using no options and with the above config, the installer gets stuck at the grey Apple icon with no cursor. After doing a little bit of research (which it seems nobody does these days… but that’s another blog… for another day…) some people have had success setting the VM to use only one core on a multicore machine. I did this to no avail. This is where the boot options play a huge part.

When you first boot from the DVD, you are presented with the default Darwin bootloader. At this point you can pres F8 to enter the options screen. It tells you all about root devices, acpi platforms, e.t.c. For my particular system, I used the following boot line;

voodoo platform=X86PC rd=disk0s1 acpi=off -v -x

This got me past the grey apple screen and to another darker grey screen with the “busy” rainbow cursor. Progress! Now, from what I read on the world wide knowledgebase, this section can take a particularly long time to load, and that my friends is what I am waiting for right now. Although I have a bad feeling I can go to sleep, wake up and find it has moved no further. Only time will tell… After this comes the installer welcome screen (or as in my previous attempts, a crash log ). I’ll leave you all here and will update again with part 2 (if there is one!)